1969: The Matrix

THE MATRIX AS ANARCHIC JOY

Is it possible to enter the Matrix, San Francisco's persistent musical stronghold, without immediately knowing it to be a most unusual institution? On the wall of the engineering booth is the answer: a photograph, magnificent in its rarity, of Jorma Kaukonen smiling. Smiling. Not smirking sarcastically, but smiling a big, boyish grin of innocent happiness, his guitar in hand. 

And such, in a capsule, is the pattern of existence at this club that gave birth to Jefferson Airplane, and with them, a community of feverish musical activity. Just about everyone started, or was helped to start here. The Grateful Dead did, after transcending Palo Alto; Steve Miller, upon arrival in San Francisco from Chicago, did; The Quicksilver Messenger Service, and of course Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Charlatans, the Final Solution, the Great Society, and on and on and on... 

Why does Jorma smile in his photograph? Because the Matrix is a fine gig to play, it possesses few of the pretensions of the ballrooms, and because it has retained those elements that were once essential to the city's atmosphere. Musicians here are human beings, not stage idols to be indiscriminately pawed and patronized. 

Sitting with Dave Martin, for all practical purposes now the club's manager, in the cramped tangle of the engineering room, talking in rambles and circles and digressions about the history. Half-empty glasses of beer occasionally sipped at, Dave doing his best to salvage his electronics while speaking from his head on the story of the Matrix. 

"The club was really built for the Airplane," he began. "Ted Saunders was the primary person; he financed the Airplane." They opened the club on August 10, 1965. Saunders scraped together the money to rent the building, and to pay the band's equipment and personal expenses. "He's suing them now, because they broke a contract they had signed with him to play here 15 times a year."

There are actually two halves to the Matrix. One is the U.S. Pizza Corporation, which Saunders still owns, and which handles the beer and wine concessions (yes, there is a bar); the other is Matrix Recording, the organization responsible for both of the Great Society albums, and more recently, the "Early Steppenwolf" collection on the Dunhill label. 

Peter Abram and Ray Bregante own the recording endeavor. "Pete had been here since 66," Dave continued, recording various groups." At the beginning of the next year, roughly January, he became the manager, and as June 67 was the co-owner, with Ray. 

Since then, the club has been gradually reasserting its financial strength. It had been so heavily in debt that on two separate occasions the gas and electricity were turned off. "We'd come in at 9:00, turn everything on, run till 2:00, and close up quick," said Dave. But nothing's been turned off since 67. 

Well, at least not for economic reasons. 

On October 31, 1967, the man raided the Matrix, convicted Peter on a charge of disturbing the peace, fined him $250.00, and hit him for a 30 day suspended sentence and a year's probation.

On October 4, 1968, once again, but this time there was no conviction. Harvey Mandel was tuning, and Pete walked into a cop's arms. The problem had been an open door, left so accidentally by the band, which had loosed the amplification to storm the neighborhood. The door is usually closed; do you think the residents could have been polite enough to phone the club and tell the owners that the door was open? Come now. 

After one added threat to bust for noise, the club shut down for a spell to soundproof the premises. But now there is a new ordinance: any sound is excessive that can be heard more than 50 feet from its source. In a commercially zoned area? 

"A new trauma every night," remarked Peter. 

In a time when musicians are charging higher and higher fees for their services, and when promoters are resorting to baseball stadiums in order to retain a good profit margin, how is a small (104 person capacity) club like this able to survive, and still present excellent talent, as it consistently does? 

Peter: "The groups realize that we're not making much money, and old people have a loyalty to the Matrix. They know that it's a relaxed place, and they feel that they can come in here and enjoy it." 

Thus you can come in on a Monday night and blow your mind over as stellar a collection of talent as you could encounter anywhere. You may see Earl or John Lee Hooker...or Jack Casady of the Airplane...or Michael Bloomfield...

The entire Airplane will occasionally play. Elvin Bishop is there quite often, Janis Joplin may drop by, or Jerry Garcia, and a lot of good black blues cats like Lightning Hopkins. 

Unfortunately, you have to be 21 to get in, because alcohol is very bad for anyone younger, and once you are inside no dancing is very feasible, as most the floor area is covered with tables and chairs. 

And you won't see the same audience you do at the ballrooms. Those who frequent the Matrix usually come, surprisingly enough, to listen to the music, not to hustle chicks or whatever. And it's not a very glamorous scene, stuck out in the Marina, with very little of the bright-light big-city feeling found at the Fillmore. 

Instead, a lot of good persons and music, with pastrami sandwiches and wine from the bar, and a lot of generally healthy vibrations. 

Finally, some few ecstatic words about Matrix Recording.

Because the club has served, as its name implies, as a fountainhead for the San Francisco rock community, it has compiled mountains of tapes, all of them cut in the club during performance, of a quite outstanding selection of musicians. Sitting casually on the shelf in the recording booth are some 20 reels of the Elvin Bishop group alone. 

This may serve as indicator of both the quality and quantity of the library. Just think what an album it would make. 

Guess what? 

A three record anthology of the San Francisco bands is now being readied for distribution. When the tapes are edited, and musicians' approval is had, the albums will be released, on a new label called Together (headed by Gary Usher, late of Columbia Records, who has produced, among others, the Byrds). Each of the three lp's will probably come out separately, though they may be packaged as a set. I think enough said.

The club itself, in the meantime, continues to present exceptional name talent, and to nurture local unknowns. It's a house of delightful colors, heavy with rich memories from the past and warm realities from the present.

(by Raymond Lang, from the Daily Californian, July 15, 1969)

* * * 

JOY, JOY: THE MARINES AT KELLY'S COVE (excerpt) 

Friday, August 8, sometime between 2 and 6 in the morning, someone ripped off the Matrix, San Francisco's oldest house of rock (this week is its fourth birthday). 

The theft was for about $4,000 worth of hardware, including some priceless tapes. The owners are in a very cramped corner and desperately need their merchandise. If anyone can supply a lead, a 10% reward waits, eager to be given. 

What's missing: two tape recorders (a TC 500 Sony - 2 and 4 track, and a 777 Sony); three mixers (one custom built, one Allied-Knight, and one Sony); ten microphones (six Electra-Voice, three Senn-Hauser, and one MB); two Dyna 70 amplifiers, and one pair of headphones. 

The tapes, though, are the big deal, fans. Precious music cut live in the club over the past two years, of Jefferson Airplane, The Steve Miller Band, The Blues Project, Elvin Bishop, Johnny Winter... 

Enough pain is enough pain. To the thief or anyone who knows him: copy the tapes if you like, but please don't record over them, and do return them to the Matrix somehow. No questions asked, no trouble needed, just the tapes, and desperately. If you have them, mail them COD, or phone anonymously and say where they can be picked up, or nail a message to the front door, but bring them back somehow. 3138 Fillmore, San Francisco, 567-0118.

Our atmosphere is increasingly feverish with negative energies. I will not be Ralph Gleason proffering bromide in the guise of explanation, but I will exhort us all to view the changes to which we have subjected our "movement."

(by Raymond Lang, from the Daily Californian, August 15, 1969)

For the outcome of Together Records, see:  

https://hooterollin.blogspot.com/2021/07/august-26-1969-family-dog-on-great.html 

https://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/07/1971-sunflower-records-story.html

November 1, 1969 & February 28, 1970: Family Dog, San Francisco

11/1/69

NO DOUBT: THE DOG 

This is a pitifully inadequate space, both aesthetically and dimensionally, in which to attempt this communication, but here it unfolds: 

Tomorrow night, the fourth of November, Workshop: Family Circus, Rainbow Jam, Tracy Hite, free-form ballet - "Circus of the Stars," music by the Family of Mu. 

Wednesday night, the Family of Man, the Family of God. 

Thursday night, acoustic string night, Tup Fisher, "All God's Children."

This last Saturday night I found myself at the Dog, listening to three artists. The first was the Golden Toad, a preettty strange assemblage of musicians performing on instruments like conch shells, bagpipes, Swiss mountain horns, double reed flutes, an endless array of percussion, and on and on. They're fairly difficult to comment on at all. 

Next was a man whom I've heard nothing about - ever - I still don't know how old he is, where he's from, or how he learned to sing and play. All I can say is that he is a magic being on stage and emits energies warmer and stronger than any solo performer I've ever seen. His name is Danny Cox. 

The Grateful Dead ended the night, deflated my body, and nearly orbited the ballroom with an achingly powerful, energetic set that ran through tunes new and old. Man, this band has endurance.

Stop by the Dog soon, if you're willing to be part of it instead of merely looking at it.

(from the Daily Californian, November 4, 1969) 

https://archive.org/details/gd69-11-01.sbd.cotsman.6298.sbeok.shnf

See also: 

Lost Live Dead: Halloween Weekend 1969: Loma Prieta Room, San Jose State and Family Dog on The Great Highway (Oct 31-Nov 2 '69) [FDGH V] 

(More on Danny Cox.) (More on Golden Toad.)

* * * 

2/28/70

DILBERT'S CHOICE (excerpt) 

The Grateful Dead are amazing. All I know for certain is that last Saturday, at Family Dog, they completely blew my mind with an energy explosion the likes of which I have never experienced. 

They opened with "Love Light," and everyone was jumping... But then Garcia and Weir left everybody hanging by doing three numbers on acoustic guitars. I mean it was O.K., but so what? All it did was rip off everyone's (including their own) energy. It took about a half-hour of Country & Western songs before they could get it together again. They've changed a bit from the old days, they now do individual songs in a C&W vein; I find it boring.

"Good Lovin" then exploded and I completely forgot my boredom... It was like an elusive acid trip...a transcendental vision. It was unbelievable. 

(by Frederick Chase, from the Daily Californian, March 4, 1970)

https://archive.org/details/gd70-02-28.sbd.cotsman.9377.sbeok.shnf 

See also: 

Rock Archaeology 101: February 27-March 1, 1970 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Grateful Dead/Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen [FDGH '70 VII] 

1969: Aoxomoxoa review

THE GRATEFUL DEAD, LIFE AND JOY

It is very odd that consciousness presents so many obstacles for so many human beings. Why are there so many problems and why does life appear to burden so many of the vehicles in which it is carried? Gloom and war, frustration and destruction. 

Discover a falling leaf. Feel the softness of the earth and see the sun glance through the mist to pour itself on a hillside. Hear nature's welcome in the wind. Find the joy in your being; perception is simple and beautiful. 

In the thick of our little street war here, the Grateful Dead released a third album. It has eight songs, and lasts thirty-eight minutes in time. They've titled it Aoxomoxa, and once again perception is simple and beautiful. 

This is a mildly surprising collection of music, essentially because it is so mellowed. The tunes are soft and gentle, the lyrics graciously decipherable, the vocals hesitant and wavering. There is a remarkable lack of harshly inflected rhythms and scalding guitar, for which the Dead have been so justly famed. 

Instead, Axoxomoxa is a wider application of the ideas we saw in Anthem of The Sun: long, dreamy ballads, occasionally interspersed with rock passages, but more often content to float their own ethereal way. Very different, a bit sadly, from the driving power of the first album. 

But this third one is a delight. It's filled with surreal (What's Become Of The Baby) and romantic visions (Mountains Of The Moon), rural whimsy and funk, and some great old blues (Dupree's Diamond Blues and Cosmic Charlie). 

Somehow, the Grateful Dead have done the impossible. They've kept their standards in the face of white-hot pressures to change. Not only have they remained an intact musical unit, they've improved their skills and sharpened and adjusted their technique, all of which indicates that they have retained their sanity. I find that pretty amazing. 

Heavily in debt, much of it from back taxes, seeing their community fall down around them, the Dead have willingly and happily played innumerable benefits and free concerts in the park (Golden Gate), because they love the music. 

When a human being takes this course of action, when he faces and withstands the demands to mold himself to the social main-current, concentrating only on the realization of his constructive ideas, you call him by one word: artist. 

The Dead are artists. They've ignored packaging trends, preferring to wrap their albums simply, without folding covers and other little goodies. They've made no media appearances, save for three, which I can remember: a KPIX special on the Haight, some two years ago; an Irving Penn photographic essay, titled "The Incredibles," in Look; and about 10 seconds on a CBS documentary of Bill Graham. The Grateful Dead are considered, very simply, poor commercial material and a sight from which the eyes of America's children must somehow be shielded. 

How sad. 

Listen to Jerry sing Robert Hunter's lyrics to "St. Stephen." 

"Saint Stephen, with a rose, in and out of the garden he goes.

Country garden in the wind and the rain, wherever he goes,

The people all complain. 

Stephen prospered in his time, 

Well he may, and he may be kind 

Did it matter? Does it now? 

Stephen would answer if he only knew how." 

YEEEEEHHAAAA! Enter the guitars, in high-pitched vocal outbursts, tumble the percussion. Mick's bizarre technique (far out and ecstatic) intersects Bill's, the band is delirious with harnessed fire, Phil's bass line insane and cohesive. This is a song of mountain light and city heavy contrasts, played with perfect restraint and control. 

"Cosmic Charlie" is almost the vehicle it could be for Jerry's riff playing. The cut is well-directed and the statements drive hard but easily. Still, the fever of the early Dead has gone down a bit, and one wishes for a few decibels more (one gets it live). 

It's no use trying to alter a classic statement of existence. The Good Old Grateful Dead will always be just that.

(by Raymond Lang, from the Daily Californian, May 29, 1969)

See also Lang's reviews of Anthem of the Sun and Live/Dead

More Aoxomoxoa reviews: 

https://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/02/1969-aoxomoxoa-review.html

https://deadsources.blogspot.com/2018/09/june-1969-aoxomoxoa-reviews.html

January 5, 1969: Fillmore West, San Francisco

BETTER DEAD THAN EVER

Win, lose, or draw, rock bands change rapidly; and their longevity is not a keynote to success. For wonder and amazement, the Grateful Dead have survived among the towers of rock. To some people, they never existed. Other persons, those who have not seen them in ages, may consider their survival a resurrection. I consider it a triumph!

THE GRATEFUL DEAD - 

The Dead are still very much the same as three years ago; back to the same old drive. They have added another drummer plus a new organist to replace "Pigpen," whose departure will further impoverish their vocal range. Having redoubled their enthusiasm for instrumentation, the Dead now resort less to song and more to the use of spoken imagery. On Sunday, the best singing was done by Jerry Garcia on "Death Has No Mercy." His guitar excellence far outdoes his voice and has definitely improved. The whole group works better, both as musicians and as a "family." The time spent together has especially proved fruitful in yielding some exciting double drumming. 

For two or three hours, the band played with but one intermission. Their reputation was gained after performing such long, "psychedelic" sets. To them, music is all one song, like a vision of the universe; it grows deeper into itself. "Pigpen" was "at home" to sing a nostalgic "Turn On Your Lovelight," that had everyone up and moving long before he finished. Children were on stage dancing. Insistent applause brought a warm response from the Dead, who finally put the evening to rest with an incredible "Good Night." For unexcelled rock entertainment, they proved again "Enjoy!" Enjoy the Grateful Dead!

BLOOD, SWEAT AND TEARS - 

Since Al Kooper decided to quit "his group," Blood, Sweat and Tears has succeeded without him. Perhaps, he was his own victim. The new singer, his replacement, comes on more strong and vigorous than the sickly-sounding Kooper. Both organ and piano fit more easily into the total sound. As a unit, the band performs old numbers with increased eagerness. Their former hit ("I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know") came off awkwardly; but "I Can't Quit Her" was super perfect in performance and arrangement. Their attempt at "God Bless the Child" was weak. However, they made up for their failure with an excellent adaptation of Traffic's "Smiling Phases." I sometimes resented the intrusion of a horn section; that was too loud and blatant. Otherwise, the band was in fine shape and good spirits. 

SPIRIT - 

As for these five, do not expect them to sound better than their records. Their music unfortunately lacks substance and thought. They produced a bit of theatre and plenty of electric gadgetry, including an echo machine. Yet, Spirit plays a la Hendrix and as a poor imitation at that. The guitarist was much too loud; singing was all right, though; and the drummer was very much in control.

(by Christian Mueller, from the Daily Californian, January 13, 1969) 

Alas, no tape!

See also:

Grateful Dead Sources: January 2-4, 1969: Fillmore West, San Francisco

Lost Live Dead: January 2-5, 1969 Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA: Grateful Dead/Blood Sweat & Tears/Spirit 

* * * 

BONUS REVIEW:

Fillmore West 1/12/69

MIND-BLOWING GUITARS AT FILLMORE WEST (excerpt)

[ . . . ] In its steadily ballooning influence over the past five years, the San Francisco musical environment has produced a truly imposing assortment of individual musicians. Exceptional lead guitarists seem to be especially bountiful. . . One wishes only that, somehow, these separate abilities could be occasionally pooled in collective presentation. Such a situation would be intensely stimulating in at least two general categories musically, so the listener might observe new relationships among performers who have played rarely, if ever, with each others' technique, and nostalgically, to view simultaneously a large contingent of those artists who have forged so much history here.

Sunday night's performance at Fillmore West was as representative a celebration as has ever been witnessed in San Francisco - and certainly one of the most exciting and unexpected. Led Zeppelin, a new, electric British rock-blues outfit featuring ex-Yardbird Jimmy Paige as guitarist, and Taj Mahal, the blues singer working out of LA, both played enjoyable sets. Both should ideally be commented on at length, but the third band . . . was so exceptional as to warrant near-exclusive focus. 

That band was, essentially, Country Joe and the Fish, playing what will likely prove to have been their last set. The personnel composing the "Fish" was a stellar collection of San Francisco musicians, the likes of whom no city could provide better. They were: Chicken Hirsch of Country Joe and the Fish, and Mick Hart, of the Grateful Dead, playing drums; Jack Casady of the Airplane on bass; Joe himself, vocal and rhythm guitar; Jorma Kaubonen, Gerry Garcia, Steve Miller, and Barry Melton, none of whom require any introduction, playing alternate lead guitars. 

The set began at two o'clock in the morning (the normal closing time), and under direct orders from the state, no dancing. This may yet qualify as one of man's mortal prohibitions. For the music rendered Sunday night was violently physical and emerging. The band traveled as through an overwhelmingly dense, yet fast-paced set of blues, a set that lasted an hour and one-half. While one guitarist, say Gerry, would make fully constructed lead statements, the others would fling sidelong, interspersed accompaniments, the sum effect of which was ideal rhythm and blues, utilizing with remarkable smoothness the various approaches peculiar to each guitarist. Not enough can be said about the performance, save to say thank you to the musicians and to Graham. A finer farewell the Fish couldn't have had if only there had been dancing allowed.

(by Raymond Lang, from the Daily Californian, January 16, 1969)

See also:

Hooterollin' Around: Fillmore West, January 12, 1969: Country Joe And The Fish And Their Friends (Plus Opening Acts)

June 20, 1969: Fillmore East

CONCERT REVIEW

GRATEFUL DEAD, SAVOY BROWN BLUES BAND, BUDDY MILES EXPRESS 

(Fillmore East, N.Y.)

San Francisco's Grateful Dead finally broke through to a previously semi-apathetic New York audience as they roused crowds at their four-show concert at the Fillmore East, N.Y., over the weekend (20-21). The event, which featured England's Savoy Brown Blues Band and The Buddy Miles Express, grossed $32,000. 

At both the Fillmore East and a free afternoon concert at Central Park last Sunday (22), the Dead earned overdue recognition as one of the biz's top rock groups, and in doing so, they significantly boosted future b.o. drawing power. For the last few years, the septet's joyful brand of thoroughly fused rock has been spreading Bacchanalia on the Coast, where the group is credited as a major contributor to the original "San Francisco sound." The feeling caught at the Fillmore on Friday as the patrons clapped, sang, and uninhibitedly danced in the aisles until they were forced to be seated due to fire laws. 

The Dead have devoted themselves to continually advancing their strikingly original and freely expressive sound, and have thus managed to maintain the fresh enthusiasm usually found only in new groups. Today's combo performance trends find most groups allowing luck to form their sets as they play their most popular tunes to the point of boring repetition. 

The Dead have reinstated the vaudeville concept of a variety show by working as a rock group, c&w folk band (with leader-guitarist Jerry Garcia picking pedal steel guitar), and a folk duet (Garcia and Bob Weir). They steadily come up with new material and new directions, such as the country-gospel "Jordan," "The Dier Wolf" [sic], and a goodtimey revamp of "Casey Jones." 

Grateful Dead's musical technique and dynamic phrasing is slated to influence rock's melodic and rhythmic structure. Two drummers supply vivid percussive side effects as well as beat while Garcia and Weir's upfront guitar playoff and Phil Lesh's singing bass lines bend and shape spontaneous melodies. 

Savoy Brown's quintet has become more consistent and can now turn in intense sets without their previous slumps. The combo has a young viewpoint and can therefore convey its brand of blues to its teenage following. 

Buddy Miles concentrates on coordination and has a fine guitar-organ combination backed by subtly potent horns and, of course, Miles' powerhouse drumming. The Buddy Miles Express is on the right track and will continue to progress as a topnotch big band.

 

(by Pine, from Variety, June 25, 1969)

 

Thanks to jgmf.blogspot.com  

https://archive.org/details/gd1969-06-21.sbd-late.bove.2195.sbeok.shnf 

 

See also: 

http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2018/08/june-21-1969-fillmore-east.html 

http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/02/june-20-july-11-1969-new-york-city.html 

February 21-22, 1969: Dream Bowl, Vallejo CA

THE "DEAD" RELIVE TONIGHT!  [excerpt]

 

The "Grateful Dead" will be heading the show at the Dream Bowl tonight and Saturday night. With them will be dancing, food and entertainment (a band, not a good time). 

For the "Dead," who have really lived up to their name in the last year or so, this will be their second appearance in Napa. 

With the addition of a new band member, and their relatively unknown second album, the "Dead" have been moving into different directions. But north, south, or whatever, they will always be great performers, as will be proved at the Dream Bowl tonight. 

 

[The rest of the article reviews a Steppenwolf concert in Santa Rosa.] 

(from the "Music Box" column, the Napa Valley Register, February 21, 1969) 

* 

THE MUSIC BOX  [excerpt] 

 

Santana, who two weeks ago drew one of the largest crowds the Filmore has ever seen, will be appearing with Sanpaku tonight and tomorrow night at the Dream Bowl. 

Santana's music (almost all instrumental) is a blend of Cuban skins and hard rock to produce a sort of "early Ricky Riccardo, late Fidel Castro" sound. They are one of the hottest bands in the bay area, and everyone who goes, should have a ball. 

Last weekend at the Dream Bowl was a different story all together. Unfortunately the Grateful Dead seem to have misplaced much of their old sound, partially due to the saddening loss of Pig Pen (he got busted). A lot of people would be grateful if they were... 

The Amber Whine were really the highlight of the evening to the hometown crowd. They are by far the best band in town, and they should be going on to bigger things. 

The Music Box learned at this dance that the Dream Bowl plans to bring the Youngbloods, the Sir Douglas Quintet, and possibly Janis Joplin and her new thing, sometime in the near future. [ . . . ] 

IN THE CITY - Appearing nightly until Sunday at the Filmore will be the Grateful Dead (direct from the Dream Bowl) and the Sir Douglas Quintet. 

(from the Napa Valley Register, February 28, 1969) 

* 

GRATEFUL DEAD PLAY NAPA GIG 

 

The highly successful music group "The Grateful Dead" performed at the Dream Bowl here Friday and Saturday nights along with "Dancing, Food and Entertainment," another group. 

According to the manager of the Grateful Dead, Jonathan Riester, the group is on the last leg of a 25 day tour of the East Coast. Next weekend the group will perform at the Fillmore in San Francisco, and then have a vacation. 

The group became really big four years ago, Riester said, and is one of the few groups to have made the big time and succeeded in retaining its integrity and remain "underground." He said "underground" meant living the life of an outlaw. 

Riester, who sports a cowboy hat and a moustache, said his group left its audience behind about a year ago with its second album, "Anthem of the Sun." 

"They did things that had never been done before on a record," he said, but added that their next album, which will be released soon, is more traditional and comprehensible. 

Lead guitar player Bob Weir feels that the group has a responsibility to its audience. Since most of the group's enjoyment derives from audience reaction, he said, it is important not to leave the audience too far behind. He doesn't want just a small part of the audience to understand what is taking place and the rest "to sit there with a question mark." 

Drummer Bob Kreutzer said the group doesn't really "understand" the music, they just play it.

A dozen people travel with the group, including seven musicians, three equipment men, one manager, and one engineer. The group uses three tons of equipment to produce its sound, valued in excess of $40,000. 

The other group playing, "Dancing, Food and Entertainment," operates out of Berkeley and has been together only nine months. Their name is confusing, admits member Dennis Reed, but he thinks this will catch on and be of help to them. They have not recorded yet but are looking forward to doing so. 

Reed said he gave up an education to be a musician and regards it as a career. Money is not something to get "hung up" over, but he needs it to survive. His group is concentrating on producing good music.

(by Gary Eisler, from the Napa Valley Register, March 1, 1969) 

https://archive.org/details/gd1969-02-22.sbd.miller.112691.flac16 

See also: 

http://rockprosopography101.blogspot.com/2010/03/dream-bowl-vallejo-ca-february-april.html

March 21-22, 1969: Rose Palace, Pasadena, CA

ROSE PALACE ROCKS WEEKEND SCENE

It looks like the Los Angeles area finally has a permanent home for rock concerts, akin to the good vibes of San Francisco's Fillmore and Avalon ballrooms.
The name of the place is the Rose Palace.
After only two weeks in operation, it's assimilated the best features of Los Angeles' historic (and no more) hallowed halls of rock: Shrine Hall, Cheetah, and Kaleidoscope, and taken some care to avoid making the mistakes that sent the aforementioned establishments into ruin.
For instance, the capacity is equal to the Shrine (about 8,000), yet there are no posts, pillars or balconies obstructing the view of the stage. The floor, though concrete, is covered with a one-inch layer of artificial grass (very apropos). And gone are the days of hot, sticky-sweltering concert hall. This place gets actually cold as the night rolls on. In other words, the place is set up for audience enjoyment.
But these features are only subordinate to the big issue: talent. Booking good shows, ultimately, is what makes or breaks a rock ballroom. Happily, the Rose Palace (run by Scenic Sounds) makes it quite well. Take last weekend for example.
The show started off with the local debut of Jethro Tull, an English quintet whose music predominantly falls into the jazz-rock genre. Riding the crest of the second wave of English pop groups, Jethro Tull (named after the inventor of the plow in England) is unique enough in its approach [and dedication] to make a dent in the American market. The group is led by the [elf-like] antics of flutist Ian Anderson, whose on-stage stance is highly derivative of a giant flamingo bird [at] rest...only Anderson doesn't rest, he's constantly moving, conveying the [same] kind of visual excitement that the Who's Peter Townscend specializes in.
The group's material runs [from] Roland Kirk "Serenade to a Cuckoo" to their own rocking "Dharma for One," to a nonsense song called "[Don't] Wanna Be a Fatman," the [latter] finding Anderson playing oud [and his] drummer beating tablas. Anderson keeps up a constant dialogue with the audience and is repaid with a [great] deal of rapport.
At one point, he emptied a [pot] of cigarettes into the audience...the crowd threw them back. Later, Anderson made a public apology for the length of his hair: "I'm sorry about it being so long and all, but it does hide me pimples."
The Grateful Dead were probably responsible for attracting most of the sellout crowd. And they were up to the task of entertaining them, particularly Saturday night. The first thing you notice about the Dead, even while they're tuning up, is the smell of cannabis in the air. It might have been there before, but somehow it's more apparent with the Dead's sets.
Musically the Dead also fall into the rock-jazz category, but for different reasons than Jethro Tull. The Dead specialize in long, long musical improvisations...the hallmark of jazz.
Led by the fluid guitar of Jerry Garcia, they buildup constantly-moving crescendos of sound that are interspersed with brief (and usually inaudible) vocal bridges. The seven-man group, which includes two drummers and a conga bopper, kept most of the audience on their feet.
The Butterfield Blues Band closed the show in style. Paul Butterfield's vocals are moving deeper and deeper into the better category, as exemplified by his rendition of the Blood, Sweat and Tears song, "More and More" (although Butterfield's version could be subtitled, "More and More, Baby"). The current personnel are a tight unit, featuring a potent horn section and an excellent new young guitarist.

Picture caption:
"Free-form musical improvisation was order of day last weekend in pop music concert at Pasadena's Rose Palace. Providing music were The Grateful Dead (left), who specialize in tunes lasting at least an hour apiece; and new English group called Jethro Tull (right), who are led by clowning antics of flutist Ian Anderson. Daily Sundial photos by Pete Senoff."

(by Pete Senoff, from the Valley State Daily Sundial, 28 March 1969)

Thanks to Ron Fritts.  

https://archive.org/details/gd69-03-22.sbd.cotsman.8994.sbeok.shnf

* * *

The LA Times also had a few words on the March 21 show.... 


BRIEF, BRIGHT LIFE OF ROCK 'N' ROLL  [excerpt]

(Most of the article is about putting together a radio program on the history of rock music.)

. . . The structure of the program forced me to define the major contributors and contributions to rock music, and the list turned out to be quite finite, despite the enormity of 20 years of heritage. There are many more Fabians and Impalas than there are Little Richards or Drifters, and a lot of what is significant today is not going to sound good in 10 years. Will the Supremes be remembered then as hazily as the Chantels are now? I suspect so. How will Jimi Hendrix's music compare with Clarence Frogman Henry's?
It is harder to do reviews now, hard to go to the Pasadena Rose Palace, as I did Friday night, and find anything relevant to say about the Grateful Dead and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band (I missed Jethro Tull - the shows start earlier than they did at the Shrine).
The Dead were not as good as they have been. Lead guitarist Jerry Garcia lacked both enthusiasm and polish. Butterfield, though, turned in an exciting set, highlighted by his wailing vocals and the band's driving horn arrangements. But Butterfield is only a hard-working technician. His harmonica playing does not compare with that of Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Walter, or Sonny Terry; his singing is beneath any of those three or a score of other bluesmen, and his band is less exciting than Bobby Blue Bland's, Ike and Tina Turner's, or Ray Charles'.
Butterfield is restating tradition rather than adding to it, and restating it not quite as well as the originals. My perspective is unfair since this is Butterfield's time, but it is harder to do reviews now. Little Richard has reminded me of too much.

(by Pete Johnson, from the Los Angeles Times, 24 March 1969)

January 17, 1969: Robertson Gym, UC Santa Barbara

SANTANA, DEAD: GRACEFUL YET POWERFUL

Climaxing four hours of the best concert that has happened on campus this year, the Grateful Dead offered a mind-expanding experience to the 4,000 who crammed into Robertson Gym on Friday night.
As one of the true acid bands originating in 'Frisco, they have survived national success and remained the most outstanding group on the hard-rock scene today.
First on stage was the Travel Agency, who are noted for their numerous originals which feature their fabulous lead singing and harmony back-up. Unfortunately, the P.A. system was not working until after their set, so they jammed for the entire time.
Their music was a fast rhythm and blues along the lines of "Ten Years After." Their drummer appeared to have great ability, but he did not project the rich full sound that Santana's and the Grateful Dead's drummers were able to produce.
After the Agency, the Santana Blues Band came on, feeding their soulful vibes to the eagerly awaiting audience. Their Afro-Blues sound got most of the crowd on its feet, turning on to the violent primitive beat. Sitting still during their set was impossible; their music let everyone release all tensions and frustrations by just letting it carry them.
Using three different conga drums, Santana's conga drummer dominated their presence. In a truly aggressive spirit, he carried the soulful beat throughout their set.
Most of Santana's members were very talented, as was proven in the solos. The conga drummer overwhelmed the audience when he broke into solos, while the organist, in the style of Barry Goldberg, created a mood of his own.
Their drummer took his solo in their fourth number, and really displayed his great talent. "Soul Sacrifice," their concluding number, brought the audience to a peak of excitement as its crude, pulsating beat flooded the gym, which then seemed to be in another world.
Whereas Santana's music was like a rushing torrent cutting deep into the earth, Grateful Dead's sound created visions of the pool of eternal calm, high above the native earth. Their graceful flowing music permeated every object, letting everyone who was receptive experience an emotional ecstasy that cannot be forgotten.
Just as the Grateful Dead began, the power blew and both drummers immediately went into solos as if it was part of the number. When the lights came back on several minutes later, most people suddenly realized what had happened.
Opening with "Shine on Me," they established their easy flowing rhythm. All seven of the Dead are exceptionally talented, and together they produce a mood that can only be experienced, not explained.
As a whole, the concert provided an atmosphere of total environment. The sound system, once it was finally set up, was very good. The visuals, which were provided by Dry Paint, left something to be desired. They had sufficient equipment to do an excellent show, yet they apparently did not know how to utilize it effectively.
The police stationed inside the gym were very "cool" about the whole affair. At the beginning of the concert, they worked diligently to enforce the "no smoking" regulation, but later on in the evening most of the heads were lighting up without any hassle.
Possibly the only disappointment of the evening was when the Grateful Dead were forced to stop playing after the house lights had been rudely blinked on-and-off several times. They probably would have continued for quite some time, as they usually do at their concerts.
Hopefully the great success of the concert will encourage other "organizations" to sponsor a similar happening. Besides being a success financially, this concert provided an exceptionally satisfying and enjoyable evening for all who attended.

(by Jack Evans, from El Gaucho, Santa Barbara, 22 January 1969)


Thanks to Dave Davis. 

See also: http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2016/11/dropping-in-robertson-gym-gd1969-01-17.html

https://archive.org/details/gd69-01-17.sbd.miller.89798.sbeok.flac16

Halloween 1969: San Jose State College

GRATEFUL DEAD BRING LIVE MUSIC TO LIVELY SJS HALLOWEEN FLING

This Friday evening SJS is having its own “trick-or-treat,” when it brings out The Grateful Dead to play in the College Union Ballroom.
The Grateful Dead, pioneers of the San Francisco sound, will be making their first appearance at SJS Halloween night.
“The Dead” have added a little country to their blues and psychedelic elements, and the blend works well, according to people who saw them last weekend at Winterland.
“The Dead,” whose music has what many people term a euphoric effect, will play two sets, a total of one and a half to two hours. It is hoped that they will play some of their more famous sets which range from straight country, as in “Mama Tried,” to the blues encore, “Good Morning Little School Girl.” In the former, bass guitarist Phil Lesch produces a good country vocal sound, and in the latter, Ron (Pig Pen) McKernan is at his vocal best.
Lead guitarist Jerry Garcia also has a good set as does organist Tom Constante and rhythm guitarist Bob Weir. The dependable work of drummers William Kreutzman and Mickey Hart is ideal in the country tunes.
Accompanying “The Dead” will be the far out sounds of the “Experimental Flash.” In addition, two color horror films will be shown, “Billy the Kid vs. Dracula” and “Godzilla vs. The Thing.” Both films will be shown silently behind the bands.
The dance will be held from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. and admission is $2 for students and $3 for the public. Tickets are on sale in [the] Student Affairs Business Office, located on the second level of the College Union.

(by Marty Pastula, from the Spartan Daily, San Jose State College, 29 October 1969)


BANDS TO PLAY AT MASKED BALL IN COLLEGE UNION

The Grateful Dead and Southbay Experimental Flash will perform at 9 p.m. tonight in the College Union to a masked audience.
In keeping with the theme of Halloween, the College Union Program Board (which is sponsoring the dance) has asked that all those attending tonight’s dance wear masks.
It is hoped that the debut of The Grateful Dead at SJS will be a pace-setter for future “name groups,” according to [the] CUPB student director.
The CUPB will provide masks for those who “forget their disguises.”
Tickets are still available in the Student Affairs Business office. [...]
[The] CUPB director added that in case it gets too warm, there will be “bobbing for apples” as refreshing but perhaps “ghostly” fun.

(from the Spartan Daily, 31 October 1969)


https://archive.org/details/gd1969-10-31.141252.sbd.pcm.dalton.miller.clugston.flac1644

1969: More Live/Dead Reviews

“Live/Dead” (Warner Bros. 1830) is the new Grateful Dead album, live tracks from a number of locations including the old Avalon Ballroom (where “Dead Don’t Have No Mercy” was cut). It’s far and away the best thing the Dead have offered on record in terms of getting across what the band really sounds like. It ought to be their most successful disc, too, since it not only sounds like the band sounds but it’s attractively programmed and mixed and the lyrics come through clearly and with meaning. The continuing dialogue between Garcia’s guitar and Lesh’s bass is fascinating.

(by Ralph Gleason, excerpt from "The Stones' Music - 'Let It Bleed'," the San Francisco Examiner, 14 December 1969)

* * * 

THE DEAD SHOW NEW LIFE ON LATEST ALBUM

The Grateful Dead's new double-LP package, "Live-Dead" (Warner Bros. 1830), is not only the best Dead on record, it also contains some of the most interesting music recorded out of the "rock" scene this year.
Actually it is the direction in which the Dead are now pointing, toward new sounds and structures in electronic music, that makes the whole 75 minutes almost consistently fascinating.
The Dead here present the most impressive concert-rock efforts ever recorded by a San Francisco group. The Dead may not (yet) be up to the integrity of the Who, and that group's rock-opera "Tommy," but guitarist Jerry Garcia and his Dead colleagues certainly have some classy sequences on this new pair of records.
The opening selection, 23 minutes of it, is titled "Dark Star," and after four playings I still kept discovering new sounds, attractive matchings of guitars, beautifully produced (and executed) audio changes, and care with dynamics. And rhythmic change-of-pace, great solos...you get the idea?
Besides Garcia's elegant guitar, which is featured, but not at the expense of others, there is remarkably fine bass guitar stuff by Phil Lesh, and all kinds of fillers and strong support by Bob Weir, the Dead's other fine guitarist.
There is little, here, to suggest a swing away from the Dead's usual extended blues improvisations to a more "country" sound (which, presumably, is where many groups think things are at, right now) but this collection of music definitely emphasizes the great three-guitar teamwork (including the bass) that Garcia, Weir, and Lesh have developed.
Pigpen McKernan's organ lines flow all through things, and he sings Blind Gary Davis' mellow "Death Don't Have No Mercy" in a warm and sympathetic manner.
"Turn On Your Love Light," second longest track, is recorded live and is a bit sloppy, but wildly spirited. It's a rhythmic romp with plenty of both the drummers (Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart) and great splitting of solo roles, separated by stop-time rhythmic gaps.
"Saint Stephen" is a wild and weird combination of almost medieval mysticism and frenzied hard rock, plus some obscure lyric lines by Robert Hunter. It dissolves, with an eruption of free-sound, into "The Eleven," which ends the concert.
My only criticism would involve the singing, or more accurately, the inconsistent stereo sound balance on the vocals. But I stopped worrying about the words rather early in the listening, and just let the voices fall into place as if they were additional instruments.
Which, of course, they are. 

(by Philip Elwood, from the San Francisco Examiner, 24 December 1969)

* * *

LIVE/DEAD (GRATEFUL DEAD)
on Warner Bros.-Seven Arts

Good old Grateful Dead! A two record set, recorded live, that flows like an acid vision. Almost everything is fine; the only thing I can think of to complain about is that "Lovelight" doesn't get me off as good as it does in person. But a phonograph record just can't handle the kind of vibration that the Dead put out when you're in the same room with them, and maybe it's just as well; when you stand away from the music, a little, you can really appreciate all the musicianship that's there. Garcia, a gliding, joyous lead - playing the way everything looks when you're so stoned you can't find compartments any more. The rhythm section is also looking out for your head: Micky Hart, Bill Kreutzman, Phil Lesh, as free in 11/4 as in 4/4, making the change so smooth it's hard to pick up exactly when it happens.
The programming of the record is perfect too - which it should be, since it just duplicates a typical Dead set.  [line missing]  "Dark Star" and "Saint Stephen" to get you centered and calm, "The Eleven" to get you standing up and (at the Family Dog, anyway) dancing, sliding into "Lovelight" which blows your mind and gets you so whacked out jumping and bopping that you're glad to fall on the floor and just listen to "Death Don't Have No Mercy". Now the acid (or whatever) is probably coming on heavy, so the Dead (ever heedful of your state of consciousness) get into "Feedback". Then, finally, "We Bid You Goodnight" gives you back your head again and sends you out into the night. Whew!
It's all here, and it's as good as we all hoped it would be. Hey, Grateful Dead, thanks for "Viola Lee" and thanks for "The Eleven," and just fucking thanks! What would we do without you? 

(by black shadow, from "Record Wrap," San Francisco Good Times, 18 December 1969)

* * *

LIVE DEAD/GRATEFUL DEAD
Warners 1830

It's taken almost four years, but the Dead finally have a waxed impression of the things they do live so well. It's a double-record set, all live, that completely eclipses the faults of their previous albums, including their other live work ("Anthem of the Sun"). This set is well-mixed, completely non-commercial in approach, and completely free-flowing.
Here, finally, we can hear Jerry Garcia's remarkably fluid guitar runs as they zig-zag in and out of the ever-changing layers of music that the group as a whole puts down. And, for a change, you can hear each individual instrument and (if you really want to) you can clearly understand the vocals. But vocals, to be sure, aren't the forte of the Dead on this set. Except for the 15-minutes of "Turn On Your Love Light" where the vocal bridges are used to draw the audience into the music even more, the seven titles on this album are largely instrumental. More than 75 grateful minutes of Dead music.
As a live album, it avoids the failings of other live sets - the long, extended applause sessions and introductions are omitted in favor of jamming in the most possible music. (Besides, those on-record applause and introduction segments are becoming more and more reminiscent of those television studio applause signs...like you have to conform to the reactions of other people. And that's the beauty of Dead music; five different people will react five different ways to it.)
There's really nothing fancy on this set; nothing that the Dead wouldn't have done on any of their live gigs, whether they were being recorded or not. The opening track, "Dark Star," is more than 23 minutes of the best instrumental whallop the group has ever gotten into. This is carried over into "St. Stephen," reworked from the version on "Aoxomoxoa"...they just put more feeling into it, further illustrating the stimuli that a live audience injects into a group. But there aren't too many groups who can work off the energy they receive from the audience and send it back to them in spades...and of those groups that can, they're probably from the San Francisco area. Listen to the interaction at the end of "Love Light," when the vocalist completes his chores with a final "Yeah," hears the audience response, and yells "and leave it on."
Until, perhaps, Quicksilver's next album (set for release in January), LIVE DEAD has got to qualify as one of the best albums ever done by a San Francisco group.

(by Pete Senoff, from "Record Raps," the Los Angeles Free Press, 19 December 1969) 

The same column also had a review of Pink Floyd's Ummagumma, which I'll include: 

The Floyd started a couple of years ago as England's first "psychedelic" band. They were touring with their own self-contained light show before news of the San Francisco experiments ever reached British shores. Their original repertoire was pop, but done with a smattering of electronics...their first album was a studio gem. But the epic and most-remembered cut on that album was "Interstellar Overdrive"...a 2001-like opus conceived and staged live before the movie was even filmed. It was an all-encompassing electronic space trip, done with a mixture of conventional instrumentation and electronics. 
A second album and a soundtrack have since passed, with the Floyd taking every opportunity to further refine their space music to an art. They've progressed beyond "songs" as such and into long compositions - variations on a theme. Almost an Anglo-counterpart to current Zappa themes. In the realm of musique concrete, it can't readily be appreciated by lead guitar freaks and "if you can dance to it, it's cool" cultists. The last time Pink Floyd played L.A., they shared a Pinnacle bill with Jeff Beck. [7/26-27/68] Predicably, Beck got the adulation and the Floyd garnered a host of blank stares. However, it's a different story in England, as they're regarded as cult figures, akin to the reputation the Dead enjoy here among a pseudo-underground.
Needless to say, this new double album is already a minor classic on the continent. Made up of a live record and a studio project, it's a good indication of the progression the Floyd have made since last year. In live concert situations, they've been experimenting with an Azimuth Coordinator Sound System, using four speaker units in a close approximation to true 360 degree sound...far more dynamic than ordinary stereo. Although this effect couldn't be transferred onto the vinyl, the four live compositions most certainly do refute any claims that the group is dependent totally on the studio. In truth, they aren't very exciting to watch live, but they amplify this attribute by being super-audio attractions; that's why their records are still the best vehicles for communication. The four live things are rearranged versions of earlier classics, including a more intricate "Saucerful of Secrets" (from their second album). 
The studio record gives each member about 15 minutes to compose, arrange, and play to his heart's content, backed instrumentally by the rest of the group. Most of the compositions are pretty abstract, encompassing diverse elements of every conceivable nature...classical piano, vocal choruses, electronics...even sea gulls. 
It's an engrossing set, one that can best be appreciated through headphones and the best possible stereo system.

* * *

LIVE/DEAD

Most albums recorded live are distinguished mainly because of the applause and shouts the fans give the performers after each number. Other than that, they might as well have been recorded in the studio, for there is no great difference.
Grateful Dead's new album (Reprise) is not just recorded live in concert, it is totally Alive. The plastic disc which serves as the divider between the listener and the band is gone, the Dead are right exactly next to you, playing with all their energy for all it's worth.
Long known for the togetherness and energy which they display during concerts, the Dead prove capable of keeping this aliveness or spontaneity intact on their album, where groups like the Airplane or Traffic become deadly boring when their live concerts are released on record.
No member of the Dead stands out above the other, they are a group, and each member's playing (or singing) becomes part of the group's texture. And yet, there is still beautiful jamming and soloing by individuals in the Dead, which makes their music so unprogrammed and exciting; but we still know that the Grateful Dead are performing a number, not just jamming for the hell of it, as Chicago or Led Zep constantly do.
"Saint Stephen-Eleven," "Turn On Your Lovelight," and "Dark Star" are examples of the Dead at their best, through extended jams and solos; yet never losing touch with their basic composition. I liked "Death Don't Have No Mercy" the least, it's a slow blues number, and up until that point the Dead were just too vibrant and moving to switch to such a slow song.
This album is really quite an accomplishment, the Dead have succeeded in putting together a live rock album that really preserves the power of their music performed live, and it should be picked up on.

(by Steve Rosen, from "Musix & Other Noise," the Spectator (Bloomington, IN), 4 February 1970)

* * *

Rock group at its best
'LIVE' ALBUM FOR GRATEFUL DEAD

The Grateful Dead is one of America's finest rock groups, although it has yet to release a best-selling album. The group's latest, "Live Dead," probably won't make it either, but it should, for the Dead today are playing what rock probably will be all about in a few more years. 
"Live Dead" is a low-priced double album of the Dead at their liveliest best. It's like hearing the group in concert at the Kinetic Playground again, where the Dead played on and on, bringing the crowd to its feet and then back down into a tightly huddled core, with eyes closed and heads bobbing.
The Dead has the ability to hit you with volumes of revelations, to make its music speak without words, and to do it so clearly you think you can touch their intangible sound.
Beginning with "Dark Star," they go through countless changes until they have completely left "Dark Star" and are jamming. After 10 minutes or so, if you can manage to think about it, you realize you don't know what you are hearing. By the time you realize that, they've managed to pull the pieces together and are again doing "Dark Star."
Side two begins with "Saint Stephen," the kind of tribute to Stephen Foster that brings you up to your feet, impatient to sing along.
"Stephen" flows unsuspectingly into "The Eleven." Jerry Garcia's guitar surges forth, and the song takes off. The lyrics are rushed over and yet they are clearly audible. "William Tell has stretched his bow till it won't stretch no furthermore and/or it may require a change that hasn't come before." Garcia's guitar takes off again, and everything falls in line.
Five minutes later, we're back to the beginning, picking up the lyrics that were passed over: "Now is the time past believing, the child has relinquished the rein, now is the test of the boomerang, tossed in the night of redeeming."
"Eleven" then beautifully fades into "Turn on your Lovelight," which continues on side three.
"Death don't have no answer" is the first song on the fourth side. It sounds like the theme song for a heroic, nearly Biblical epic that has one major message: Don't die for something, live for something.
"Death" is followed by nine minutes of "feedback," which seems to have come straight from the crypt. Here again, the Dead show they are not amateurs experimenting with bleeps but are far ahead into the electronic age.
"Feedback," like the rest of this album, flows from beginning to end and finally works its way into the last lyric, with which the Dead usually ends a live set: "Lay down my dear brothers, lay down and take your rest. I want you to lay your head upon your Savior's chest. I love you - ah, but Jesus loves you the best, and I bid you good night."
It's magnificent.

(by Wayne Crawford, from the Chicago Daily News, 5 February 1970) 

* * *

POP: ROCK HAS THEM DANCING IN THE AISLES AGAIN

Physicality - that's the thing. And it's all around us. Nude theaters, erotic flicks, bare-skinned photo journalism. More directly - a greater than ever before emphasis on exercise, self-defence, non-verbal encounter, and just plain old physical self-awareness.
But what happened to pop music? Peaking at the greatest popularity, the most lucrative financial return and widest cultural influence in its history, pop found itself, in the late sixties, moving further and further away from the activity which was at the very core of its existence - dancing. "Rock is becoming just like jazz," one listener has said. "It just isn't very good dance music anymore."
One of the reasons that so many sophisticated rock groups came out of San Francisco in the mid-and-late sixties was that dance-music remained a necessary part of their repertoires. Balancing musical adventurousness with solid, danceable rhythms, groups such as the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead demonstrated that it was possible for a rock group to grow into a complex artistic organism without severing the vital tendrils of rhythm that tie it to its public.
The Grateful Dead were at the Fillmore last week, playing their music, showing us that physicality is still the thing in pop music, and reminding us that a band that can't make people dance had better not plan on staying around very long. When Ron "Pigpen" McKernan launched into his unique improvision on blues lyrics, with Jerry Garcia's soaring guitar lines whipping in and around the vocal, the Fillmore audience came enthusiastically alive. The 2nd Ave. rock palace is no dance hall, but when the impulse is strong enough, even the confines of an auditorium seat can be room enough. Soon most of the audience were on their feet, sliding, bending, waving their bodies in an almost symbiotic interchange with the musicians.
It was the kind of musical excitement that the Dead always generate in "live" concerts, and rarely on studio recordings. (The group's newest release, Live Dead, Warner Brothers 1830, recorded live on two disks, allows the band the leisure time it needs to build up musical energy. For the record listener it is a first class opportunity to respond to the enormously powerful rhythmic impulses of the San Francisco septet.)

[The review continues:]

The Dead weren't the only rock group in town stressing physicality. The week before, Delaney, Bonnie & Friends - with superstar guitarist Eric Clapton as the best-known "friend" - were at the Fillmore, and Sly & The Family Stone jammed Madison Square Garden on the weekend. 
If the Dead were the major advocates of dance music in the late sixties, the Delaney & Bonnie and Sly groups look very much like the best new dance bands of the seventies. Arriving in town on the crest of a wave of laudatory publicity, Delaney & Bonnie sounded as though they finally had made a whole cloth out of the many tangled threads of influence that make up their music. The presence of Clapton, one of the authentic cult heroes of English rock mythology, gave the group an aura of solid musical achievement that was reinforced by the stories of Beatle George Harrison's performances with D&B (as a sideman, no less) during their recent European tour. 
But clearly the Delaney & Bonnie eight piece ensemble would be a good one even without the presence of English pop mighties. Bonnie is one of the few - perhaps the only - white female singer who works convincingly with the blues. And like Delaney, she instills the black-based music which dominates their repertoire with a twanging country music swing. The result is probably the most convincing mixture of these two curiously similar musical genres since the heydays of Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, and Buddy Holly. Delaney gives Bonnie a musical, and no doubt spiritual support that seems to stimulate her to a far wider stylistic range than, say, Janis Joplin or Tracy Nelson. But Delaney sometimes dominates the group and Bonnie too much, cracking jokes, boozing between selections, using Clapton as the butt of sophomoric humor, and worse of all, taking too much solo space for himself. Delaney is good, but a group that has Bonnie and Eric Clapton in it should make more room for their superb talents. Like the Dead, they play the kind of music that can get the sometimes immobile Fillmore audience to its feet. A new Delaney & Bonnie recording titled Delaney & Bonnie and Friends On Tour with Eric Clapton is due from Atlantic this week (SD 33-326, stereo). 
Physicality reached its peak with the arrival of Sly and the Family Stone on stage at Madison Square Garden. The arena police, hard put to keep the audience seated during the preliminary acts, gave up entirely when Sly and his rocking seven piece band appeared. Aisles were jammed, masses of youngsters came storming down from the upper reaches, and visibility, even in the front rows of the orchestra, was almost impossible without standing on one's chair. 
Sly's music was undeniably aimed at physical response. "I want to take you higher" he shouted, and the audience answered "higher, higher." The rhythm settled into a driving, heavily accented groove that demanded little from the audience except a recurring, march-like foot stamping so strong that the concrete floor of the Garden began to reveal frightening tremors (reminding me of old stories about the effect Lionel Hampton's version of "Flying Home" used to have upon the balcony audiences at the Apollo). 
As with the Dead and Delaney & Bonnie, Sly has assembled a band that plays together with brilliant technical efficiency; the most exuberantly improvisational sections somehow come together with the cohesive structural dynamism of a first class symphony orchestra. Sly has developed a leitmotiv arranging style that inserts familiar word and melody patterns - "take you higher," "dance to the music," "boom-sha-ka-la-ka-la-ka," etc. - into the fabric of many different songs. These recurring motives give the audience a happily familiar reference point, even in brand new material, and guarantee a persistently energetic listener response. 
So physicality is back in force for pop music. The loud cries of a return to the simple rhythms of nineteen fifties rock & roll confirm just how much it has been missed in the last few years. But so long as the Grateful Dead, Delaney & Bonnie, and Sly and his Family are with us, there will be no need for revivals. Better get out your dancing shoes.

(by Don Heckman, from the New York Times, 22 February 1970) 

* * *

LIVE/DEAD, WARNER BROS., $8.98

This review is not for Grateful Dead Fans. They already have this record. It is for those who recognize that the Dead are more than a spiffy, hip allusion in "Hair" sung by the Cowsills, but who have never seen them alive. They only come off live. 

In concert on any given night, Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Pig Pen, Tom Constanten, Bob Weir, et al, just might jam their way into your heart. The album in question, "Live/Dead," is a collection of old favorites done by the group in top form. 

The problem involved in seeing and hearing the Dead on any given night is that their improvisational music might not come off. When they do get it on, fantastic! When they don't, the music is terrible. That is the beauty of the album; we have nights when they were really into it, preserved on acetate, four sides of it. 

The album opens with 23 minutes and 15 seconds of "Dark Star." The piece is really a fugue with theme and variations. The lyrics are superfluous, in fact, distracting, with their early Alan Watts overtones. For example: "A transitive nightfall of diamonds." But the piece as a whole is tremendous. After hearing this song, you keep getting replays as if the music were in the air. 

"St. Stephen" has just the right lilt for singing along if you can handle more than an eight-bar break between verses. "The Eleven" moves with the same drive and vigor that characterizes the best of the Grateful Dead. 

"Turn On Your Love Light" has never been done quite like this. The Dead don't mess around when they say "turn on your love light," and the crowd responds in kind. For 15 minutes they incite the audience to do all kinds of nasty things with great music and exhortations such as, "Take your hand out of your pocket and turn on your love light." 

"Death Don't Have No Mercy" is funky-down blues. This song is as soulful as any B.B. King rendition could be. Now we come to the bad part. Eight minutes of "Feedback" is more than any person can tolerate at a sitting. 

Jerry Garcia is tremendous on lead guitar. His riffs are fresh, inventive, and neat to listen to. Phil Lesh is great on bass, but it is pointless to cite individual performers because the total performance is greater than the sum of its parts. 

The Dead are a group for those who would rather hear brilliance once in a while than hear mediocrity all the time. "Live/Dead" could have been called "The Best of the Grateful Dead" because that's what it is. 

(by Rolf Hage, from the Oregon Daily Emerald, 15 May 1970)

* * *   

NOTE
The new Grateful Dead album, "Live Dead," should be purchased by Dead maniacs only. You really have to be a Dead fan to put up with the shoddy production and the obnoxious "Feedback" cuts that Reprise gives you. I like the Dead and this album contains a lot of pleasant and worthwhile music. I think they rely too much on long rhythm-pseudo-solos with two or more drummers, but they obviously enjoy what they are doing and are playing for themselves.
(from "The Critic," by Mike Baron, the Madison Kaleidoscope (WI), 4 March 1970)

LIVE DEAD - THE GRATEFUL DEAD
This 2 record set is the closest thing to the Dead in person, on a typically good night. And it's as good as you have heard it is. "Dark Star" runs 23:15, "Turn on Your Love Light" is 15:30, "Saint Stephen" and "The Eleven" combined are 16 minutes of side 2, surrealistic jams that could come only from Jerry Garcia and Company. Two tabs, two heads, and "Live Dead" make for a perfect evening.
(from "Records," by Rob Klein, Northwest Passage (Seattle), 20 April 1970)

Thanks to Dave Davis.

More reviews:
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/02/1969-livedead-review.html 
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/03/1969-livedead-review-2.html 
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2015/07/1969-livedead-reviews.html
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2018/03/1969-livedead-review.html
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2018/06/1969-livedead-reviews.html  

June 1969: Aoxomoxoa Reviews

A RELAXED 'FISH' -- AND A 'DEAD' PUZZLE  (excerpt)

The Grateful Dead’s album is called “Aoxomoxoa” (Warner Brothers 1790) and it is an ambitious work, as all their albums have been. It does have the sound of the Dead and it does have a good deal of that hard to describe but warm feeling which they produce in their personal appearance, but the album somehow leaves me unsatisfied. This has been happening in recent concerts by the group, too, and it puzzles me.
It seems to have something to do with the fact that there is a kind of warm, pre-natal formlessness about their work. This is something of a contradiction because their music, any music almost, certainly has some form. I think it is a question of internal structure rather than the kinds of form which involve length, juxtaposition of movements and segments. The Dead ramble and the kind of excitement of creativity which they can get in person is difficult to capture on records at all and may be impossible.
On the other hand, the shifts in mood and feeling from track to track may be too subtle for some (i.e. me!). It is a disturbing thing. In some ways the Dead seem to personify the best and the worst of the permissive music concept which, I suspect is also reflected in their life style. It’s not that the album is bad; it is rather that having had such moments of enjoyment from the Dead, the album, as was its predecessor, is a disappointment.

(by Ralph Gleason, from the San Francisco Examiner, 15 June 1969)

*

AOXOMOXOA...THE DEAD

I received a letter the other day from my seven year old brother Luke, who is in England, about a conversation he overheard in a pub in the village of Worcester-on-Sauce between the worldly British aristocrat, Sir Clancy Crigginsborsh, and his close friend the noted country blues guitarist Big Blind Broken-Legged Bill:
Sir Clancy: "Oh I say old chap, what is your opinion of all this new music being produced by the younger generation, all this rock and roll?"
Big Blind Broken-Legged Bill: "Oh man, what is this? I don't think nothin' of it, man. That stuff ain't music, it ain't got no feelin'. Now you take the blues..."
Sir Clancy: "Yes, it's all rather juvenile, eh wot?"
Big Blind Broken-Legged Bill: "I'm hep, man. Bunch of corny dudes trying to play somethin', but all they does is make a lot of noise. Sorry motherfuckers. Nickel-dime, lemon-lime."
Sir Clancy: "My feelings precisely, old chap. The decibel level is so excruciatingly high, isn't it? And the lyrics are so adolescent, why it all just..."
At this point my brother took his thumb out of his mouth and interrupted with: "Aw, you're bunkers you are," and proceeded to put on the new Grateful Dead record. The reactions were not long in coming.
Sir Clancy, eyes shut, rocking back on his heels: "I say, oh I say, it's so...refined."
Big Blind Broken-Legged Bill: "Blues that swing."

Well now the point of my brother's story is that the Grateful Dead is one group that should appeal to all persons, no matter what their personal persuasions. Some people refuse to recognize the greatness of the Stones because they are afraid of dirtiness or too much overt sexuality or roughness or some such thing. Others shy away from the early Beatles because they are afraid of being sentimental. Still others stay away from Otis because of his open emotionalism and lack of intellectualism. Everyone limits himself in one way or other.
But now the Dead are not only one of the very few groups around who are as good as the Beatles, the Stones, and Otis, but also they have a style of playing and express a mood which most and perhaps all people should be able to accept. I think it has something to do with the pleasantly uplifting quality of their music and the purity of their tone. There are people in this world who are afraid of all kinds of legitimate feelings, but I doubt that there are too many who are afraid of lyricism and uplift.
Last weekend at the Fillmore East, the Dead gave the best concert this reviewer has ever attended. [6/21/69]  They even beat out Sam and Dave, and that's going some. Sam and Dave, and the Grateful Dead, definitely the two best live acts around these days. And both of them will be in New York this summer. Enough said about that.
The thing about the Dead, of course, is that they are all such fine musicians. Phil Lesh the bassist is perhaps the best anywhere. The only ones I can think of off hand who might possibly compare with him are Jack Cassidy and Bill Wyman. The organist, Tom Constanten, is also one of the best around, and very sneaky. He just sits there, with everyone else moving around, smoke bombs going off, things going on, and throws in these tricky little things with perfect taste. He must be good, since he replaced Pig Pen, himself one of the best organists around.
Of the two drummers, one is very good, the other can hang with anyone.
The lead guitarist, Jerry Garcia, is certainly the best guitarist around today. There is no one else who can be compared with him even for a moment, except maybe Lightning Hopkins. But you mention B.B., Clapton, Cropper, Keith Richards, and popular chumps like Jeff Beck, and they're all nothing compared to Garcia. If Django Reinhart were alive today maybe he could compete. I don't know though. It is truly amazing that a guitarist could so dominate a group of such top-notch musicians.
At the Fillmore concert, and also at a free Central Park concert the next day, Garcia played steel guitar on a couple of country songs. He isn't as good on that yet as he is on a regular guitar, but he still might rank with the best.

Which brings me to the new Grateful Dead album, Aoxomoxoa (spelled backwards is...). The new album, their third, is better than their second but not as good as their first. Which means that it is very good. One of the best albums released so far this year. The back cover is the picture that this article is writing around. When I first saw this picture it made me a little afraid to play the record. It made me wonder if the Dead were on a bad trip. But they aren't, and even if they were it wouldn't matter actually. They're so comfortable. Like Ray Charles.
There is something about the new album that is very confusing. The music doesn't make complete sense to my ears at first on some of the cuts, and I think it has to do with the Dead breaking through to a new kind of music. The first thing I noticed about this record was that the music seems to be more horizontal somehow, more stretched out on a line than earlier Dead records or other rock. It seems to do with the fact that every member of the group is good enough to be a soloist, and so they all solo at once. The result is that, especially on the first songs on each side ("St. Stephen" and "China Cat Sunflower"), one no longer has the traditional vertical set-up of rock with the drums and bass underneath, the lead guitar on top, and the vocal on top, out front, or in the middle. All a very big generalization, of course, especially since rock has been moving away from that set-up for the last few years. The Jefferson Airplane, for instance, have always been somewhere between the vertical and the horizontal.
But, getting back to Aoxomoxoa, the point is that the bass and drums are not underneath, at least on the two songs mentioned. They are just sitting up there at the same place as the other instruments. And with everyone soloing at once, and the instruments stopping and starting at different times (another non-rock idea), the effect becomes a little avant-garde jazz-like, and you're not completely sure what's going on. In fact the whole concept is analogous to avant-garde jazz. But it still flows from rock and although confusing, it still sounds nice right away the first time you hear it. St. Stephen has become one of the Dead's favorite concert numbers, and has become an audience favorite as well. Which shows that this stuff is easy enough to get into. It's just confusing, that's all. You don't know what it is, but you like it.
The most traditional, and also the best song, is "Dupree's Diamond Blues," possibly the best song the Dead have ever done. It is absolutely necessary to buy this album just for this one cut alone. This song is simply a joy to hear every time and any time. It opens with the best words on the album: "When I was just a little young boy/Papa said to me, son you'll never get far/I'll tell you the reason, you want to know/Because child of mine, there isn't really very...far to go." It's cool the way boy rhymes with far. Then the song goes on to be a love song about a man who steals a diamond ring because he likes his jelly roll, and well I won't spoil it by telling the whole story now. I'll just add that the music is awfully kinetic.
The rest of the album includes a cut which is all bottleneck guitar and not much else but which is still rock, I think, and good, and a long piece of electronic music over and over again, because it usually seems so intellectual. But this selection is all right, because it seems to express a mood pretty well. It's like the back cover a little bit.
The song most like the back cover though is "Mountains of the Moon," a harpsichord song about a carrion crow among other things (see what I mean?).
So all in all it's a really nice album, and unique too, a must for any record collection. For that matter their first album is a must too, a straightforward rock album that anyone can appreciate, and their second album might be a must too. It's a near must anyway, if only for its fine kazoo playing. And now I'm waiting for their fourth album, and I hope it contains a live version of "Turn on your Love Light," the song they now use to close their concerts, with Pig Pen telling his story about how his mother told him that he shouldn't keep his hands in his pockets, that he should get his hands out of his pockets and go out and get what he wants, and the song just going on and on, thirty minutes? Forty minutes? Long enough anyway.

(by Mark Blumler, from the Columbia Daily Spectator, 27 June 1969)

See also:
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/02/1969-aoxomoxoa-review.html

January 24-26, 1969: Avalon Ballroom

On Jan. 24-25-26 the Avalon will reopen under new management with an opening bill consisting of the Grateful Dead, Sons of Champlin, and Initial Shock.
(from the San Francisco Examiner, 14 January 1969) 

*

MUFFLED AVALON ROCKS AGAIN

After a month and a half of eerie quiet, the Avalon Ballroom will rock again tonight to the same bands whose sounds caused police to close the place down last month.
Presumably to convince neighbors it won't be that bad this time, the promoters of the new rock dances have fitted themselves with the promising name of Soundproof Productions.
The name is in striking contrast with Chet Helm's Family Dog, the outfit whose dance license was taken away because of the barking and all.
Soundproof Productions was formed by several former employees of the Family Dog. Helms himself wasn't asked to join.
The new company will stage its shows with the benefit of the dance license of John Whooley, who has the master lease on the Avalon.
Though Whooley said "a lot of work" has been done to make Soundproof Productions live up to its name, he can't promise that some of the sound generated inside won't be audible outside.
If necessary, more money than has been spent already will be poured into making the Avalon as sound proof as it will ever be, he vowed, adding: 
"If it isn't perfect this weekend, it will be next weekend."
To supervise the crowds and make sure they behave inside and outside, Whooley and Soundproof Productions have hired eight special police officers.
A full time janitor, who'll sweep up in front of the Avalon after the shows, is also on the payroll.
The Avalon's bill tonight includes the Grateful Dead, Sons of Champlin, and Initial Shock. The light show is by the Garden of Delight.
It all starts at 9 p.m. at Van Ness Avenue.

(from the San Francisco Examiner, 24 January 1969)

*

It's a dog-eat-dog world. Two former partners in Chet Helms' Family Dog are proving their pedigrees at the old and new Avalon Ballroom which reopened last night.
Bob Simmons and Gary Scanlon left the Family Dog when, in their own words, "it looked like everything was over." The trio had been together since student days at the University of Texas. Simmons and Scanlon call their new Avalon operation Sound Proof Productions. The neighbors fervently hope so.
Equipped with the landlord's good will and his dance permit, they began with the Grateful Dead, Sons of Champlin, the Initial Shock, and a bit more soundproofing.
"We plan to bring bigger acts than ever to the Avalon," they said, naming stars like Ike and Tina Turner, Lee Michaels, and the Youngbloods.
How does Chet Helms feel about the break? Bitter, disillusioned, but undaunted, he believed things will work out for him at Playland where he plans to open using the Family Dog name.
Both ventures will bring needed competition in that phase of the music business back in the Bay Area. Nobody should corner the market.

(from Tom Campbell's "Pop Scene" column, "The Sound of Competition," San Francisco Examiner, 25 January 1969)

*

AVALON REOPENS TO SLIM CROWD

The rains came and, buffeted by the winds, the small line of rock fans huddled under umbrellas in front of 1268 Sutter.
In contrast to the long queues that ran four abreast around the corner and up Polk Street several months ago, it appeared the reopening of the Avalon Ballroom was a bust.
But inside, past the security guards, the line Saturday night streamed up to the dance area, where it appeared all sweetness and light.
This was the new look and softer sound promised at the reopening of the controversial rock and strobe light mecca for the hippie set.
The saxes honked and the electric guitars blared while the Garden of Delight played its lighting against the walls. The Grateful Dead was on the bandstand and the floor was packed with the long-hairs, the unisex, the gay trappings associated with the hippie element.
To the uninitiated, it would seem to be a huge Halloween costume ball. A young man walked by, and somewhere in that mass of hair there was a face.
Soundproof Productions was making the scene. Everyone was being careful not to create the unwholesome atmosphere that resulted in [the] closing of the Avalon for a month and a half.

But, outside, in addition to the record rain that was flailing the Bay Area, there were other storm clouds gathering. Neighbors, who complained in October that the Avalon element created filth, loud noises, and such indecent incidents as urinating in doorways, were adopting a "watch and wait" attitude, like the lull in the eye of a hurricane.
Deputy Police Chief Al Nelder revoked in October the license of Chet Helms, who operated the Avalon under the name of The Family Dog. The revocation was subsequently upheld by the Permit Appeals Board.
John Whooley, who has leased the ballroom the past ten years, reopened it Friday in conjunction with Gary Scanlan, 26, and Bob Simmons, 28, both lately of Austin, Tex.
Whooley has said a lot has been done to make Soundproof Productions live up to its name. "If it isn't perfect this weekend, it will be next."
But has the noise been kept down?
Not so, says Mrs. Catherine McLean, operator of the nearby Madison Hotel and one of the complainants against the Family Dog.
"You can still hear the noise," said she, "maybe not quite as loud but still noisy." Two of her tenants complained about the noise this weekend and are going to move out, she added.
"I don't know what I am going to do, I have to make a living."
George Kaplanis and Fran Scarpulla are two other neighbors who are adopting a wait and see attitude. Kaplanis, owner of the Via Vai cocktail lounge on Polk, said burglaries and crimes pick up when the hippies are around.
Scarpulla, who owns and operates The Tortola restaurant at 1237 Polk, said he was concerned with "the way the street has deteriorated" but feels the situation can be controlled.
Jean Maunas, partner with Mrs. McLean in the Madison, said the music is still loud and "you can't even go through the alleys because of the cars."
He complained about "hippies" congregating in the lobby Saturday night and throwing cigaret butts and candy papers around.
Whooley and Soundproof Productions have hired eight special police officers to control the crowds. Scanlan and Simmons said there were no problems Friday and Saturday nights.
The Avalon is permitted a 950 capacity at a time and no one under 18 is allowed in the place. Kids under 18 can get in if they have a letter of authorization from their families, Scanlan added.
The weekend storms kept the queues down on Sutter and up Polk. Whooley, Scanlan, and Simmons say they are keeping the noise down and controlling the crowds. The neighbors are marking time.
Next weekend may have some answers.

(by Dick Alexander, from the San Francisco Examiner, 27 January 1969)

More on Soundproof here.